Anyone who has watched the news, scrolled through social media or spent time on an American college campus since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, knows the chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” To the Western ear, the English slogan is lyrical and emotive. But the version chanted in Arabic is a far different sentence with a far different intent.

In Arabic, the line is closer to “Palestine will be Arab.” The two chants are not synonymous.

Palestine will be Arab does not mean equality or pluralism. It means replacement. A “free” Palestine in many English-language accounts becomes, in Arabic usage, a Palestine that is Arabized—a polity from which Jews are excluded. That is not anti-colonial rhetoric. It is a call for recolonization.

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